I am the co-founder and CEO of Zenger Folkman, a strengths-based leadership development firm that created a methodology that enables leaders to move faster and higher. My work with my colleagues at Zenger Folkman has led to statistically significant improvements in how leaders lead, how their employees engage and how their companies profit; allowing both leaders and organizations to soar to new heights.
I am considered a world expert in the field of leadership development, and am a highly respected and sought after speaker, consultant and executive coach. I have authored or co-authored over a hundred articles on leadership, productivity, learning, training and measurement. I am the best-selling author or co-author of 12 books, including How To Be Exceptional: Drive Leadership Success by Magnifying Your Strengths , The Extraordinary Leader, Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders (McGraw-Hill, 2002), The Inspiring Leader: Unlocking the Secrets of How Extraordinary Leaders Motivate, command The Extraordinary Coach: How the Best Leaders Help Others Grow, and Results-Based Leadership, (Harvard Business School Press, 1999) voted by SHRM as the Best Business Book in the year 2000, Not just for CEO's – Sure-Fire Success Secrets for the Leader in Each of Us (Irwin Professional Publishing, 1996); and Making 2 + 2 = 5: 22 Action Steps to Boost Productivity (Irwin, 1997). I am a co-author of three books on teams, including the best-selling, Self-Directed Work Teams: The New American Challenge
In 2011 I was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Training and Development, their highest recognition for contributions to the workforce learning and development profession.

The Feedback Conundrum: Does Positive Or Negative Feedback Help You Most?

Which has helped your career more? Positive feedback? Or constructive critiques? In a recent Harvard Business Review blog our organization collected data from 2,479 people on this question. Their response was a surprise: We discovered that 52.5% say negative feedback was more helpful, while 47.5% say positive feedback influenced them more. It appears the world is divided roughly in half on this issue. What does this mean?

It depends on your perspective:

For those who choose negative feedback, we can sum their philosophy up as “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

70% agree with the statement, “My performance and possibilities for success in my career would have increased substantially if I had been given more feedback.”

They were 11 times more likely to say they preferred negative over positive feedback.

They tend to view positive feedback as “mostly fluff,” not very helpful, and as something the weak would prefer.

72% said that a leader can be most influential in their career by “giving corrective feedback and advice when mistakes are made.”

Many people in this group seem to have an internal fear they may be doing something stupid that is ruining their career that everyone else is aware of and that no one, including the boss, is willing to speak about plainly.

For those who choose positive feedback, this group feels that constantly giving others negative feedback creates a demoralized work environment, where the role of a leader is to “catch people doing things wrong.” Yet even those who preferred positive feedback are not suggesting that leaders should entirely abandon the negative or corrective feedback they give.

Sixty-seven percent said the best managers “deliver much more feedback, praise, and recognition than negative feedback.”

What was fascinating in our research was the degree to which the attitude about which feedback was most helpful influenced each person’s preference for giving and receiving positive and negative feedback as well.

Note in the graph below how those who believed positive feedback was more helpful show a significantly stronger preference for giving positive and negative feedback and receiving positive feedback. Those who selected negative feedback showed a slightly higher preference for receiving negative feedback.

In our data we notice the perception of which feedbacks are most helpful changes significantly with age. Early in a career, 64% of those who were 30 years and under felt that negative feedback is most helpful, but after age 50, approximately 60% preferred positive feedback.

We also found that males were substantially more likely to prefer negative feedback (57%), but females were slightly more likely to select positive reviews (at 51%). It was also interesting that when we looked at the data by position, 57% of supervisors preferred negative feedback but 53% of top management selected positive feedback as best.

Peoples’ assumptions about which feedback is most helpful was also influenced by their functions. Sixty-six percent of people in quality assurance indicated that negative feedback was most helpful. This finding may be influenced by their responsibility for programs such as “zero defects.” QA, Legal, Operations, Finance and Accounting and Sales functions show a strong preference for negative feedback. It is also interesting that those in Safety select positive feedback 60% of the time. Administrative/Clerical and HR also showed a preference for positive feedback.

Geography also appears to have an influence here. In the U.K. and the U.S., 53% prefer negative feedback, but in Australia and Canada, 53% and 56% prefer positive input. The countries with the strongest preference for negative feedback were Mexico, New Zealand, France, Switzerland and Brazil, who report a 60%-plus preference for negative feedback.

As we looked at the data, we were somewhat concerned to see the degree to which beliefs about whether positive or negative feedback was more helpful impacted people’s ability to give and receive feedback as well. We maintain that both positive and negative feedback are essential, with each working best at different times and with different people. If you are one of those who believe the world would be a better place if people only knew what they were doing wrong, our advice to you is this: “Lighten up.” Only 12% of the people in our research reported being surprised by negative or corrective feedback. On the whole, they seemed to inherently know where they stood, somewhat like the traditional anecdote about the salesperson attempting to sell The Encyclopedia of Better Farming to a seasoned farmer. The farmer looked at the salesperson and said, “I already know how to be a better farmer. It’s not the knowing I need, it’s the doing.”

If you are a person who strives to focus on only the positive and assumes that people don’t need corrective feedback, our advice to you is “Toughen up.” People need to understand boundaries, and they need for leaders to provide them with confirmation when the things they’re doing are wrong. The best leaders provide both varieties of feedback well and have learned to be insightful and selective about the ideal times for each.

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